Red Rise
by designislife1
Summary: SPOILERS 70 years after the Red Rise and the fall of the Silver Empire, it's turn for the Gods to pay their punishment. Kelea Liron is a gifted red, one of the privileged in a world at war. But when she is kidnapped by the True Equalitarian, a terrorist group looking to destroy the bridge between reds and slaved Silvers, she will learn things are not black and white. Summary inside
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! And welcome to my first Red Queen fanfic (and kind of my first fanfic... but no biggie). I just wanted to explain that this story will be set in the future but it will explain what happens to Mare &co after the end of the book and how that develops into this future, so beware of spoilers! Though I don't really think anybody will read this, just in case haha.**

 **Now, for the summary that was too long for the site:**

 _ **The world was once divided by blood. Silvers ruled over Reds, with God-like powers to subdue them into their service. For centuries they watched as their children were taken away from them to fight a war they never wanted, but one day everything changed, one day when an accident proved that Reds held a power of their own, stronger and deadlier.**_

 _ **Now it's been seventy years since the Red Rise and the fall of the Silver Empire, now its turn for the Gods to pay their punishment. Kelea Liron is a gifted Red, one of the privileged in a world at war, living the life won by the revolution, where Silvers are slaves for war, trained since young to serve their government, to pay for their ancestors' crimes. But when Kelea is kidnapped by the True Equalitarian, a terrorist group seeking to abolish the bridge between Silvers and Reds she will learn that when it comes to the silvers, there is no black and white.**_

 **Enjoy, imaginary readers!**

There was a time when everything was black and white. When old monsters ruled the earth with silver crowns and silver blood, forgetting the brothers they once had.

The poor reds, the simple reds who had once been equal were nothing but waste in those times. They weren't good enough, smart enough, powerful enough. They were different, less, and the Silvers thought it their right to rule over those who were weaker than them.

They lived in glorious castles of marvelous glass. They played with their gifts forgetting what they were for. Conquer, power, survival. After generations of oblivion powers were nothing but pretty things to spend their time playing around. Who could play better? Who knew more? Who was on top? They played, danced and ate in their castles, forgetting the war they had started long ago, the war they made the poor, simple reds fight.

Reds had no choice. They were less and for that they would serve the better. They wanted a drink? Then call a red! They want a war? Reds would go, millions of them , they were nothing but cannon fodder. But the reds prepared their drinks, and they knew how to put the poison, they fought their wars, they knew how to fight them. They just didn't know it yet; reds had spent so long being nothing they ended up believing it.

Silvers were especial, reds were not. That was until our Leader, Mare Barrow an infiltrate in their ranks, a red and a silver and stronger than both. She was a red, she knew the sufferings of our people, she had endured them herself. It all began with her, when a red was as especial as a silver, and even more. She became one of them, studied, made herself stronger and those around her. But silvers were not all too forgotten about the war. They were petty creatures you see, and they did not like a lesser to be like them. To be as powerful as they had only be known to be. She was betrayed, casted aside, set as pariah for everyone to see and shame. But she was not ashamed, she was strong and she had others, millions who were especial and didn't know it.

All reds are especial.

Our Leader fought for us for the poor brothers and sister who had been enslaved for so long. She was brave and relentless and on the battle of Calorn the enslaver were defeated, their system torn and broken. It was useless, we didn't need it, we had been divided by power for far too long, it was time for change, it was time for equality.

My mother says humans are flawed always have been, always will be. And human constructions and ideas are flawed as well. We know it was time for a change, we know that the silvers were cruel to us, not only because they wanted to, but because they were ignorant of us, they neglected us, forgot our humanity and treated us worse than animals. We know our leader, Mare Barrow is good, and decent and our faithful servant. That she was the one who saved us, and she will be the one to make sure we are always safe and happy, never again on the chains.

But we also know not everything we are told is true. Some forget, some choose to believe what they are told, grateful as they say we should be that we are in power now. Others like myself choose to try and see things for what they are. We were slaves and now we are free. But when before it was the Silvers who ignored us for not being like them, now it is us the ones who discriminate, the one who cast aside, and the ones who enslave.

Silvers had to be controlled, history tells us. They were in power for so long they were bound to try and get it back. They tried and failed, until they learned they were nothing. Reds are more powerful, is what we know, stronger, better than any of them and we showed them, we proved it was our time to rule, and that it was their time to be slaves.

Silver is synonym for low, monstrous and beastlike. Greedy little things they are, they have to be kept in line, away from the poor reds they tortured for so long. This is their punishment, their personal hell. This is their purgatory.

Little did we know, we were all going to hell.


	2. The Scarlet Guard

It's been three days and nothing has changed.

Three days since I escaped my death sentence, a fake trial imposed for a crime I didn't commit. I was a thief, then a princess, a revolutionary and now I'm nothing but a fugitive, accused of seducing the heir prince to murder his own father. A red trickster who took advantage of the Queen's kindness and used it to her twisted motives.

I'm a lie, but I'm finally free.

The Scarlet Guard came for me and Cal, the fallen in disgrace prince, and is taking us to safety. Not that you would guess that considering the metal tube we are in. This transport is uncomfortable at best, with its trepidant sound keeping me awake at night when I can see nothing but darkness around me. Little time is spent in chats, and every night Farley commands for the electrical lights to be turned off. She never sleeps though, I can hear it shuffling, cleaning her guns or passing from room to room, looking for what I don't know, but asking her is a lost cause, she barely looks at me before going back to her drills.*

It's only on the second day that we are out in the open. Before, the metal tube slid through ratchet tracks like a grumpy snake, outside of it we were surrounded by concrete walls. Every now and then the walls would open, broken and old as they were and would let glimpses of light in. Bored as I was I would stick my nose to dirty glass and stare, hoping to see more, to get a clue of where we were going. Most places looked the same, a huge open space with flora and fauna growing wildly around, remnants of the world before.

At the end of the second day we saw something different though; white and silver walls and floors, there were no plants in that building. It was all too clean, one would think that the time and dust that was everywhere would have gotten rid of that, but not there. It still was broken though, there were cracks, huge and strange, almost claw like on the walls. We saw only a glimpse of it thanks to the speed but it was enough, that place didn't look like anything good.

By the second day I learned something, wherever we were going it was really hot. Shade would always sit next to me, during those three days we talked about everything, or at least of as much as we could without Farley shushing us.

He told me how his camp had been attacked in the middle of the night and he woke up with a gun to his head only to open his eyes and be back in the market in the middle of the night. That was when he met Farley and learned what he could do, when he joined the Scarlet Guard. He told me that our family was safe, waiting for us with the Guard. I enjoyed having him with me again after thinking he was gone for so long. Sleeping in his arms like we did when we were kids made me feel safe again. There was no Maven, no Elara, not even Cal with his ridiculous bag over his head waiting for whatever fate the Scarlet guard had for him. Evrything was fine again, until the walls ended and we were out in the open, into the brazing sun.

The land extended for miles untouched, no plant or building disrupted the dry soil. There was nothing to protect it from the merciless onslaught of the sun.

The rest of the journey really started to get extremely uncomfortable. Kilorn, who was sitting right in front of Cal, started to change positions every now and then, looking for an air drift that wasn't there. The rest of the Guard looked all the same, I knew the names of some for what I had heard; Liam was the tall guy with jumpy eyes that always followed Fairley around, he was probably her second in command. The girl with the large gun always at her side was Kia, and by the way she kept stealing angry glances at Cal's limp form I could imagine why she kept that gun around.

None of them wanted to speak next to Cal, they would go to another moving room where only the faintest whispers could be heard. It was too dangerous they said, to speak in front of a silver, and a prince at that.

They thought he could be a spy or something, they clearly didn't know him. I tried to get them to get the bag out of his head but they wouldn't listen even when I said he was not a threat, and that he had gone through the same as I had. His brother, my fiancé, had betrayed him like the coward that he was, hiding behind his mother's skirts as the Queen Elara, a whisperer and his stepmother, forced him to take his sword and cut his father's head off.

He was called a butcher, a traitor and a monster and he was our greatest ally. They didn't understand that we needed him, that he knew things we could use against the Silver empire. But they were scared, we had all trusted Maven and his speech of revolution and he betrayed us all. I don't know if the guard can ever recover from this.

By the third day we arrive… to the middle of nowhere.

"This is it?" I ask glancing around at the hard, dry soil under the scorching sun as the speed starts to dwell. On the distance, where the surface is like a dancing mirror I can see little structures, but even from here I can tell they are small and wretched, some are missing a wall, others the roof. If this is the Scarlet Guard's safe hiding, we won't be alive for much longer.

The metal tube comes to a stop, the electricity fueling it slowly dies down through its cables until it's off for good. Farley is already up and ready, the heat doesn't seem to affect her as much as making her sweat. She is pure energy and strength, admirable considering how she was almost killed twice in a week and nearly crushed to death a few days ago. She is a leader that never gives up, she is someone people can follow.

"Alright, listen up. It's particularly nasty outside today, so we're going to let Shade do his business so we can get this over with."

"His business?" I stand up, looking for Shade. "What will you do?"

"It's nothing, I'll just go and let people know we are here so we won't have to wait out in the sun for too long." He winks at me and in a flash he is gone. I feel someone walking behind me and turn around to find Kilorn.

"He'll be fine, it's just that with the attack and well, maven," he grimaces when he mentions his name and I can feel the air getting hotter and more oppressing all of the sudden when I think of him, as if he was the heat cooking us alive, the sun burning our skin. He used to be so warm, a nice relief in the coming fall, now he's nothing but fire, destructive, consuming, deadly. "We have been having extra care with the communications; it's easier to stay safe if they can't get us."

I nod but don't feel better, imagining all sorts of scenarios in which shade is somehow captured, that there is no place for us to go because Maven is already there, waiting with his ever present cold smile.

I can't help my eyes to go back to Cal sitting straight despite everything. Wouldn't he had been cheering for my death were it not for his betrayal?

He'll never choose me.

After a few seconds my fears are dispersed when Shade returns and we start moving. I step eagerly out of the wagon, waiting to be free of that oven only to meet the scorching sun. When inside the wagon we had to endure the hot air, now we are met with burning heat on our skin and creeping up from the soil.

The group stays together; two men escort Cal by the arms, bag still on his head as we walk through the disserted place. I don't know where we are but it's nowhere I have ever seen, not even from Julian's lessons. The land has been witness to the cruelty of the sun for far too long, the soil is a reddish brown cracked at the lack of water with a few resilient weeds popping from here and there. If only shade could take us all there and be done with this.

When we finally reach the decaying buildings I think I'll faint. My skin feels like it's been peeled off and hot oil has been poured on it. The shade of the walls is not much comfort considering how the heat is everywhere but it's nice enough and we all let a collective groan of pleasure when we get to recline against them.

"This place always creeps my out." Shade mutters behind me, and when I look up I can see why. The structure is strange, nothing like the houses on the stilts or the palace of the Silvers. This one, although it was destroyed years ago and the heat and dust had taken over it, had a modern air I could not explain. The materials were not the bricks we know but rather a unique structure with solid wires and some crystal-like element similar to the one of the palace's walls. It's a solid block rather than a multitude of bricks put together.

I feel the transport's electricity before we see it. Again is another death trap, all electrical and shaking all the way to us. Shade said the Scarlet Guard took old stuff and reconfigured it so they could use it. The garbage that was useless to the silvers was now our weapons against them. Where have I heard that before?

When we arrive there are five more people inside beside the driver and it drives off to where it came from. Shade notice my nervousness and holds my hand. These five new people don't give me a sense of comfort as I had expected, what can five more people do against an Empire? My mind swirls in endless questions. What do we do now, that the Guard was hit? What happens with Maven and the rule of terror he has begun? What will happen to reds, gifted and not that will have to endure the hell that will surely be brought to them?

We stop in front of a rock formation in the middle of the desert. Once we get close enough I can see a camouflaged metal door hiding in the left corner.

"And," I ask finally, unsure of what to do. "Now what?"

"Now," Farley says with a smirk when the door opens and my eyes go wide at the sight inside. "We hit them back."


End file.
